Sky Bet fined £1m for failing vulnerable consumers

Sky Bet has been fined £1 million for failing to protect vulnerable consumers.

The Gambling Commission said the failures related to Sky Bet customers who had “self-excluded” from gambling, a tool used by those who feel they are having trouble controlling their gambling and request that the operator refuse their bets.

However, 736 customers who had self-excluded with Sky Bet were able to open and use duplicate accounts to gamble, the watchdog found.

About 50,000 self-excluded customers received marketing material by email, mobile text or a push notification within a mobile app, and 36,748 did not have their funds returned to them when they closed their account.

Gambling Commission programme director Richard Watson said: “This was a serious failure affecting thousands of potentially vulnerable customers and the £1 million penalty package should serve as a warning to all gambling businesses.

“Protecting consumers from gambling-related harm is a priority for us and where we see operators failing in their responsibility to keep their customers safe we will take tough action.

“Sky Bet reported the issues to us quickly, cooperated with us and has taken this investigation seriously.”

Sky Betting and Gaming chief executive Richard Flint said: “We have always taken responsible gambling and player protection very seriously, but this incident showed that we needed to do more.”